The present invention relates to the field of video recording/transmission and social media. More specifically, the present invention relates to methods, apparatus, and systems for participating in social media activities while undertaking a live video transmission or recording session by instantly sharing video content (still images or video clips from recorded video) during the recording of the video content with social media websites.
Social media began as a Web darling and has now permeated the social fabric of people's everyday lives. The television broadcast industry has taken notice, and social media has become an important part of television production and news distribution. In particular, social media has had a large impact on live television production that includes news, sports, and coverage of major events, entertainment, and more. With audiences having many more choices regarding when and where they choose to get their information, traditional television broadcasters must expand their reach in order to remain competitive for audience attention.
Social media has enabled production staff in the studio (such as anchors, news directors, assignment desk managers, producers, social media desk managers, etc.) or staff in the field (such as production crews, reporters/on-air talent, camerapersons, technical crews, field producers, etc.) to quickly communicate with audiences using popular social media applications such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and others. By communicating directly with an audience during a live television production, it is possible to drive viewers immediately to a particular program to watch an event such as a breaking news story.
The challenge often is determining how does the television production staff in the field efficiently and easily contribute to social media as an integrated part of their normal process. Reporters and on-air talent are mostly occupied with presenting or gathering information for a live story/live shot, camera crews are focused on capturing the event, and technical crews are tasked with operating complex equipment.
It would be advantageous to enable the operator of a field camera (or other video capture device) or other person(s) in the field associated with the operation of the field camera, to instantly post selected images or video clips from the recorded video content to one or more social media outlets. It would be advantageous to enable such instantaneous posting of images or video clips via the simple press of a button. It would also be advantageous to enable production personnel remote from the field camera to receive and review images or video clips from the video content recorded in the field and instantly post such images or video clips to selected social media outlets.
The methods, apparatus, and systems of the present invention provide the foregoing and other advantages.